Gene, I was just looking at my Color Guide collection the other day
and thinking "Why the heck hasn't anyone done a C&NW book?" :-)

Most of the books contain a wealth of photos from the 1960's and
1970's, and not a few from the 1950's. I have a couple hundred
color slides of freight cars from the 1950's I got from Dan Smith so
I know they exist. Richard is mostly concerned with the pre-1950
era so in his case, color shots are hard to find.

I think the books are an invaluable record and in 20 years it won't
be possible to produce them with the same quality because a lot
of experience and knowledge will have been lost forever.

Anyway, I will reply: old faded cars are fine. Most important to me
is the quality and clarity of the photo. And I'm happy with shots of
cars in MofW service if that was their fate and no other shots are
available. Best of all is an original photo and a repaint photo, to
chronicle the changes the car went through. And yes, plenty of
people model the era after 1960 (at least occasionally), including
many people on this list.

With regard to second-hand cars, especially CGW and M&StL -- I
would check back in those volumes first, and if the same car appears
in those books, then a C&NW repaint would just go into a lower
priority pile... then it would be used only if needed to illustrate a
point, or because it was an exceptionally good photo, or if it were
a very common car in later years.

And keep in mind that some cars have been covered very well in
other places -- like C&NW billboard box cars by Jeff Koehler, for
example. (At one point he was talking about doing a multi-volume
C&NW book series.) So a dozen color photos of those cars might
be less important to a reader than other stuff.

Clear as mud?

Tim O'Connor